The decision by the Communication Workers Union{CWU} to enter talks at the conciliation service ACAS is a clear indication that it is looking to end the strike and capitulate to the demands of the Royal Mail.
It is no
accident that the attempt by the CWU to end this strike coincides with two inter-related
developments: the crisis in the Tory party, which has all the hallmarks of a
revolutionary crisis developing in Britain and the growing strike movement that
is threatening to grow out of the control of the Labour party and trade union
bureaucracy.
For the last
six weeks, the CWU has sent numerous begging letters to Royal Mail management
pleading to be lenient and negotiate with the union, only for Royal Mail to
ignore their pleas, escalate executive actions, and threaten mass redundancies.
The redundancies are a clear attempt to intimidate postal workers from taking
further strike action. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has made it clear
that it will not mobilise postal workers against Royal Mail's declaration of
class warfare.
As Tony Robson
points out, the union issued "an appeal for the Board to meet and discuss
the union's "alternative business plan", framed as one offering
greater profitability based on "utilising the competitive edge it has
already in its deliveries to 32 million addresses across the country."
Royal Mail's
agreement to talks is a ruse to buy more time to end strikes over the
profitable Christmas period and to give the Tory government time to implement
draconian anti-strike legalisation.
From the very
first days of the strike, the union has put forward a pro-business agenda. David
Ward, CWU leader, said shareholders were on the union's side, boasting on a Facebook
meeting that the union had held secret talks with VESA, the same private equity
firm pushing through massive attacks on postal workers' pay and conditions.
As for ACAS,
the union is asking postal workers to put their faith in an anti-working class
and pro-business organisation. It is not some independent organisation, but a
mechanism used by big business to end strikes, as the Refuse workers in Coventry
found to their cost[1]
The postal
workers' dispute is now in danger and threatened directly by the CWU
bureaucracy's corporatist strategy, posing the need for the rank and file to
take charge. At every Royal Mail and Parcelforce depot, rank-and-file strike
committees must be established to fight for the following:
· An inflation-busting pay award, with all
future pay automatically indexed to the RPI inflation rate
· The immediate provision of strike pay
for Royal Mail, BT and Openreach workers and Post Office workers to co-ordinate
effective and sustained joint action
· No negotiations with Royal Mail until
all mass redundancies are withdrawn and all executive action ended over the revision
of terms and conditions. Any further talks are to be live-streamed.
· Reach out to Amazon workers who have
launched wildcat action against sweatshop conditions in a united front of all
delivery workers to defeat the race to the bottom
· Royal Mail and Amazon must be
nationalised, their profits confiscated to meet pressing social needs and their
operations placed under the democratic control of workers.
[1] ACAS sides with strike-breaking
Coventry Labour council against refuse drivers-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/16/cove-m16.html
